The pandemic has kept many of us from leaving the house, but honestly, why would you want to? There is too much TV to watch to go outside. Outside doesn’t have Hulu or Netflix or HBO Max. To encourage you to stay home and stay safe, comedian/writer Rima Parikh and myself (two people who watched just as much TV in the before times) will be diving deep into the shows we’re loving or lovingly hate-watching, social-distance-style, over Google chat.
Rima Parikh: I went in a little cold. I remember the glossy shots from the trailer and random marketing on social media, and knew vaguely that it would be about sexual assault, but I didn’t fully know what the show would be about until I started it. What about you?
BW: This makes complete sense. It shows that there’s not one right way to deal with the experience of sexual assault, and that all those different ways can be rolled into one person. One single person who has gone through that experience can do the quote-unquote right thing of reporting the crime, seeking help, joining support groups, speaking out for themselves and others while still also ignoring the problem, engaging in harmful behavior, distancing and hurting loved ones, ignoring responsibility. Because of that range and depth I feel the show isn’t so much trying to be prescriptive as it is relatable.
RP: Yes! In some ways, it’s like, how did she make this show and also make Chewing Gum? And in other ways, it’s like, OK yes, she definitely made this show and made Chewing Gum.
RP: Yes! I agree. Going into the second half of the series, after seeing people on social media be like “this show is bad for survivors,” I was a little wary. But I think it made me want to look at it in a different way–like instead of being like, “OK, here is a perfect visualization of the aftermath of a sexual assault,” I think it was more about engaging with what was presented (and acknowledging the messiness even further) to be like, “why is she showing this in this way? What’s going on in her head? What do we take away from this that’s good, and what do we take away from it that’s maybe not so good?” I think it adds a further complication that maybe even Coel didn’t intend or anticipate, but that’s not a bad thing.
RP: Yes! These hot people would invite me to a party! They would NOT push me into a bathroom in the fifth grade! S/o to my elementary school bully. She did it because she was HOT and I UNDERSTAND NOW.
